


The delicate flower has burned

by MadKingEdgar



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A little bit of fluff, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimson Flower Route, F/F, mostly happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23078896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadKingEdgar/pseuds/MadKingEdgar
Summary: “I-I’m so sorry, Hilda.” She was always so damn apologetic. Even at the worst of times, all she did was apologise, even when she wasn’t in the wrong. Hilda felt a tear roll down her cheek. Why did this story have to have such a dreary ending?Hilda suffers through the defeat of the Leicester Alliance during the Crimson Flower route. Marianne was recruited into the Black Eagles house, and so the close friends (maybe even something deeper than that) find themselves on the opposite side of the battlefield.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	The delicate flower has burned

Hilda was dying. This is what it felt like. The pain in her chest, whose origin stemmed from more than just a wound in battle, seethed, leading her in and out of consciousness. Her story, the story of the Alliance… It was coming to a close. On the bright side, at least she didn’t have to do any more hard work. If only dying were easier than this, than laying in rubble and crying out every time you feel a sharp pain.

The war was over now, at least for the Leicester Alliance. The path of the Golden Deer had to end in sorrow, as destined ever since the madwoman Edelgard raised an axe against the Church of Seiros. Some part of her hoped that when she got to look down from the heavens, the battle would still be raging, or perhaps one of Claude’s schemes finally worked out. A quick shot across the field would be all that is takes to kill the empress and end the five-year war for good. If only that dream were to come true.

Dying was taking far too long. Surely the human body could only hold so much blood, right? Spending this long bleeding out was doing horrible things for her mental state. Couldn’t it have been instant, built upon the shattering of a hope of victory? No. It had to be slow and SO damn painful. She wished to die with a friend beside her, maybe even doing something like holding hands with one of them and facing off against the world. Her friends didn’t exactly make that possible, did they? Jerks.

Ignatz had been killed weeks ago, defending the great bridge of Myrddin. It was apparently a quick and vicious strike from one of the “Black Eagle Strike Force”, rumoured to be Petra, but that one strike shook her and her friends to the core. No matter how hard they tried to stay neutral, to remain out of conflict, someone had to take the first blow. It was a shame it had to be Ignatz… It had been so long since they had last spoken, Hilda promising to have her portrait painted next time she visited his hometown. The portrait wouldn’t happen, it seemed.

No-one knew where Raphael had gone. He had fought alongside them for the years they attempted to remain neutral, but they lost contact with him months and months ago. Claude suspected it was a random monster attack, but Ignatz always assumed otherwise. Some hoped he was still out there, but what kind of state will he be in when he learns of their massacre at the hands of Edelgard? Any attempt to strike back and he’d meet the same fate.

Lorenz resigned from his position as Claude’s right hand man early in the war, eager to help his father in the political battle to rally for the empire. They didn’t feel betrayed, it was just simple loyalty to his family. It was a shame he didn’t choose loyalty to his friends, however. Hilda admired his free spirit, but look where it got him. She had always enjoyed the company of Lorenz, and she surely didn’t picture this to be where he ended up, partially responsible for the death of his friends. Of Hilda.

She thinks she has the strength to stand, and so she tried, leaning on rubble for support. It’s effort. She doesn’t want to have to put in effort. But she does, because maybe it’ll be worthwhile to see the sun set one more time. Stepping out of the shack she crawled in to die, she finds that the majority of this city block has been torched with flames, the stone turning black and the wood pouring smoke into the sky. She liked the docklands. It was always so peaceful to walk along here with her friends, remembering times that had been.

Leonie had once promised to teach her how to fish, but in the five years that came after that promise she never got the chance. Hilda was tempted to try it out in her honour after her mercenary group was found dismantled, the only survivor claiming they had been ambushed by the Ashen Demon en route to the bridge, where Ignatz would meet his fate. Whether or not professor Byleth killed her father’s pupil remained a mystery, but she sure hoped Leonie was out there, still kicking.

Byleth. She’s the reason for it all. The Adrestian Empire was doing perfectly fine until she came back from her hiding hole to reignite the flames of war. Under her guidance, Edelgard was unstoppable. Why did she have to choose the Black Eagles? If she had just chosen Golden Deer or hell, Blue Lions, this would never have happened. Maybe Dimitri would be sane enough to save them, or Claude would have just the right amount of confidence to lead them to victory.

Hilda stumbled, leaning on a piece of building to stop herself from falling again. Would Holst bow down to the empress, or would he die fighting? She knew it would be the latter. Edelgard killed his sister. It was the obvious choice to seek revenge.

Well, it wasn’t exactly Edelgard. Hilda placed a hand on her chest and found it sticky with blood. Her heart hurt. How would her brother feel to know that his best friend was involved in her slaughter?

“ _If you kill me here, I won’t be the one my brother finds responsible.”_ She remembered trying to reason with him, pleading for him to stop his one-man advance on her squadron. He was too good a fighter to defeat, even with five guards assigned to her.

“ _If that happens, offering my life is the least I can do to make it up to him. That, and taking you home.”_ She wonders if he’ll come to find her body once he’s finished killing her men. If the fight was over, perhaps he was running over now, searching through Hubert’s charred victims and hoping she wasn’t one of them, burned to an unrecognisable crisp.

Her fight with Balthus wasn’t the thing that finished her off, though. She escaped easily enough, cowardliness pushing her to desert her troops to certain death. She truly thought she had a better chance of turning the tides if she made a retreat. She thought it would be worth it. It wasn’t.

Hilda touched the wound on her side. Of course Hanneman was right, her carelessness would lead to an arrow catching her off guard. It wasn’t her fault, though. It was the fault of her heart. It lead to her death in every way conceivable.

“ _I-I’m so sorry, Hilda.”_ She was always so damn apologetic. Even at the worst of times all she did was apologise, even when she wasn’t in the wrong. Hilda felt a tear roll down her cheek. One last cry for the road, she thought. Why did this story have to have such a dreary ending?

“ _I-”_

_Hilda cut her off before she had the chance to continue. She doesn’t want to hear this. She doesn’t want to see any of this. She doesn’t want to fight in this war, watch her friends die, watch her country burn. She wants to curl up in the Goneril estate and have a cup of tea, gaze nostalgically at her axe and think ‘The officers academy wasn’t too bad at all’_

“ _It’s okay, Marianne.” She never thought she’d be saying these words, but she is. How beautiful she’d grown to be in the four years since they last met. She once told Hilda that the reason she spent her time praying was so she could be lifted from her curse, taken back into the arms of the goddess. It was foolish of Hilda to think she had claimed her own life without saying a word. She had found her happiness, flanked by imperial soldiers. “These things happen in war.”_

_The arrow pierced her side with an intensity that sent her flying backwards onto the ground. She could hear Marianne shriek, but it couldn’t have possibly been for her. Blood seeped from her wound. These things happen in war. It was fact. She could hear Claude calling out for her, screaming her name. He was close, which meant his plan had backfired in some way._

“ _It’s been fun, Claude.” She choked out, trying to maintain consciousness. “Sorry to go so soon.”_

When Marianne left to study in the Black Eagles house, no-one felt offended. They’d still see each other during training and meal-times, and she and Hilda would still abscond to the Goddess Tower to waste away the hours, hand in hand with her head resting on the blue haired girl’s shoulder. Sometimes, especially in a school, it all came down to teacher synergy. Some people felt more at ease with Byleth than Hanneman, so it was a clear choice for someone as unsociable as Marianne to make. She’d even helped defend Garreg Mach against her former classmates, almost meeting her doom as she retreated from the battlefield.

How could she follow Edelgard’s rule like that? How could she help kill her brothers and sisters of the Golden Deer house? Did she help with the killing of Ignatz? Was she there when Leonie met her end? Is she what happened to Raphael? Hilda was thinking irrationally, trying to justify herself, trying to find a reason to hate Marianne.

She just couldn’t. Someone so apologetic couldn’t have hurt a friend. She could barely attack Hilda. The grass must have been so much greener on the other side to warrant crossing the bridge, turning on her family and working with the Flame Emperor. One way or another, everyone had become a villain.

Sadness swirled inside of her as she thought of her ‘little sis’ Lysithea, the child prodigy thrown into a war she couldn’t hope to live till the end of. Despite her illness, she made a stand. And she chose her side.

“ _It’s not like I had an easy time of it, after all…”_

Hilda couldn’t bare to look when it happened. She’d rather not know what was the thing that killed her, or hear her final scream. She flew as fast as she could.

Marianne… Did she know of what was happening, how their future was being twisted? They shouldn’t have been enemies.

Hilda collapses, this time onto the bloodied pavement that covered the streets of Derdriu. The capital used to be so pretty, but it seemed that now all the Emperor wanted to do was burn it to the ground. Fitting for her moniker. Everything would be doused with fire under her rule, all for the guise of a better future. A future Marianne believed in. One her attractive professor did, too.

If only there could have been some closure. A debriefing, a final monologue. A talk with her best friends before she passed, anything. Would Marianne grieve as Hilda did for her all those years ago? She knew Claude would.

  
Claude. She missed the guy already. What she would give for one last conversation, one more second to hang out and laugh and waste time. Edelgard would execute him, just like she planned to do with Dimitri and Rhea. There can be no-one to oppose her.

“You’re a tough one.” It’s Claude who reaches out to her at the end of times, his voice ever so clear in her head. “I told you to retreat, didn’t I?”

She was crying as she responded to him. Tears streaming down her bruised face. “I tried, Claude.” She wept openly, for this would be the last time she had the chance to. “I couldn’t be there when you needed me.”

“Nah, don’t be like that.” His voice was soft, like it was when he was telling you a dangerous secret. “You did great, Hil. I’m proud.”

“I couldn’t do it.” She thought back to the girl with the blue hair, the regret shared between them. “I couldn’t hurt Marianne. I think that’s what got me.”

“Love isn’t a bad thing. If we were destined to lose, it was better you lost to love rather than to a lack of cunning like me.” Of course Claude knew. He could always see through everyone, so the subtle hints of a romance between Marianne and herself would’ve been so obvious to him.

“I don’t think that. You were plenty cunning, Claude. More than me.”

“You deserve a better future than the one I tried to give you, Hil. Maybe Edelgard will bring it to you.”

  
“She killed my friends, turned the ones she didn’t kill against me. She killed you, dammit!”

Claude chuckled. “The Golden Deer doesn’t die with me, Hilda. Remember that. It exists within all of you, for as long as you keep breathing. In Marianne. In Raphael, wherever the bastard is. Hopefully within Leonie. Definitely in Lysithea. And in you.”

Hilda’s mind was a cruel device. It fed her hope where none conceivably existed. She truly thought she had lost her mind when she felt Claude’s arms wrap around her, pulling her close.

“I’ll miss you, old friend. One day, we’ll each see the future we’ve carved for ourselves. I look forward to it.” Claude’s face was shining with the setting sun, a reminder of the bold smiles he kept hidden for his happiest moments.

Hilda felt a rush of cold come over her, and then a soothing sensation. Looking down, she finds a concoction in her hand, cap open to allow it to pour over her side. When did she get this?

Claude was gone as quick as his ghost arrived, the shadows of the night taking his place.

  
“I’ll miss you too, Claude. And I’m sorry for never going along with your plans. Especially now.”

* * *

How dare the empire replace the banner of the deer with that of an eagle? How dare they not only tarnish Derdriu with the colour of the people’s blood but also the colour of their disgusting flags. Within the recovery effort, it was surprisingly easy to sneak inside of the city hall, where the healers had set up for the night to tend to the wounded. The scent of medical chemicals filled the air, as well as the sound of repeated healing magic. Maybe she’d be able to play herself off as a wounded soldier, but that didn’t much matter. She had a mission.

  
  


She found what she was looking for, and it was damn hilarious how trusting the Adrestian army was of the citizens of the city hours after their invasion. Either the lack of guards was a sign of naivety or the war truly took a toll on the fighting forces. Hilda hoped it was the latter. It didn’t matter.

  
  


It was trance-like. The walk around the medical bay was nothing at all with how light her body felt, to the point where she began to doubt her ability to swing an axe at her target. Hopefully it wouldn’t allow her to waver. She was going to work for it, no matter how hard it was.

  
  


“Don’t be stubborn. It won’t take that long.” The chuckle of the empress was something Hilda had not heard for five painful years. How dare she laugh while others cried because of her, weeping for their lost ones? She had no right to be happy. She tended to one of the wounded with a smile on her face, wrapping the bright green haired woman with bandages. “Come on, teacher.”

  
  


Why was she doing this? What ungodly rage was she possessed by that she’d go against her best friends dying wish? No. It was the wish of her own mind, too delusional to make sense of things.

This woman took everything from her. She killed Claude. She killed Lysithea, and Raphael, and Leonie, and Ignatz, and Judith, and turned everyone else into villains. She was the evil here. Marianne… Her sweet soul corrupted by such evil.

  
  


The emperor reached out to stroke Byleth’s cheek. The ashen demon smiled fondly. Neither of them had noticed her, and anyone else was choosing to believe that she was one of them. A belief misplaced.

  
  


“Are you hurt, Edelgard?” Byleth looked her up and down, the gaze of a caring soul in her eyes. She will be hurt. No-one was left to look at Hilda like that.

  
  


“You turned her against me.” Hilda spat as she walked towards the unguarded and mostly unarmoured empress, axe in hand. No-one was going to react fast enough to stop her, unless one of the healers possessed greater magic than most people. “Edelgard.”

  
  


Both women turned to Hilda immediately, eyes widened. Byleth moved to sit up, but Edelgard pressed an arm on her chest.

  
  


“Hilda?” Edelgard’s face was slathered in shock. “I thought you-”

  
  


“You killed them all, Edelgard.” Hilda continued, readying her axe to kill if there was any chance of her getting cut off. “This is your fault, Flame Emperor!”

  
  


“Please stand down.” Edelgard slowly moved away from Byleth, who watched on in terror. No-one would dare try anything, would they?  
  
“Or what? You’ll murder me too? Like you did with Claude, with Lysithea, with Ignatz!?” The axe was primed for a swing now, and it was only a matter of time before she met her end. The concoction she stumbled across served one clear meaning: finishing what she started.

  
There was panic now, the healers backing up to secure the soldiers that tried their hardest to do something. Hilda spied Ferdinand, bandage wrapped around his arm, laying unconscious. Good thing he wouldn’t have to see his empress die.

“Lady Edelgard!” A males voice, Hubert’s, called out from behind. It was now or never.

  
“Stand back, Hubert!” Edelgard held out her arms. “Don’t strike.”  
  
“But- your majesty!”

  
  


“This is an order, Hubert. Don’t attack her. I promised Claude I wouldn’t hurt any of his friends after the battle was done.”

  
  


“And then what!?” Hilda was screaming through tears now, the weight of the axe causing her to sway. She was volatile, dangerous. She was going to be killed. “You sealed that promise with his head on a spike?”

  
  


“Please, just listen to me-”

  
  


“I won’t listen to the Flame Emperor. You even lied to your own house, didn’t you? The ones who swore to be your family? You’d have killed them if they stood in the way of your future, is that right?”

  
Edelgard looked to Byleth and then to Hilda. “Yes. I would have.”

  
  


She was going to die after this attack. She’d likely kill the empress in a single blow, but her life would end. It was fine, however. These things happen in war. Maybe it would be Dimitri who could truly avenge her friends and bring order to Fodlan. He’d not be as good a ruler as Claude would have been.

  
  


“Don’t do this, please.” The professor expressed so much more than before. It was all a lie.

  
  


“Hilda!”

She could hear the voice from behind her, the sound of hurried footsteps growing closer and closer. It was her time to strike, surely. But something in her hesitated.

“Wait!” A voice usually so soft had become panicked, fearful. Emotions rarely heard from Marianne came calling for her down the hallway as the voice finally seemed to enter the room. It was now or never. Wait a second more and she’d be killed by Hubert.

Her heart throbbed. She really would have preferred to spend today in the camp, resting up or training with her favourite axe. Maybe she’d spend a day with Lysithea, or contemplate getting a head start of the fishing lessons promised forever ago. It was better when she thought Marianne was dead, because then she wouldn’t have hesitated.

“Hilda. Please put the weapon down.” It tried to lull her senses, to make her compliant. Marianne was dead. She died four years ago. All that was left was to avenge her.

  
“I’m going to kill her, don’t you worry.” She assured the corpse of Marianne. “We deserved better than this, didn’t we?”

“How about we have some tea? I’ll bring some of those pastries we always loved.” She was trying to get in her head. Distract her. “I want to talk to you again after all these years.”

Hilda wouldn’t even look at her. She couldn’t, for if she did, she’d surely surrender. What then, death?

“If you’re going to strike me down, Hilda. Do it.” Edelgard’s words struck Byleth with surprise, her eyes darting between the pink haired girl and her empress. “I’d have died for love. And you’d have died rejecting it.”

“Please, please, please!” Marianne was pleading now, her hands daring to touch Hilda’s shoulder.

Love isn’t a bad thing. Losing to that can’t be too shameful.

Hilda’s axe left her hands, colliding with the stone below her. Edelgard let a sigh of relief.

“Shall I execute her, your majesty?” Hubert’s hands sparked with dark flame. Hilda was ready. Marianne gasped.

The Flame Emperor gave her response.

* * *

“Are you okay? Watch your step.”

  
  


The blue haired woman helped her friend step down from the rocks, guiding her so she had no chance of falling over.

  
  


“I should be fine.” Hilda Goneril made the final step, leaning against Marianne as she found her footing. “It’s not the first time I’ve done this.”

  
“You’re injured, though.” They both looked down to the heavily bandaged leg of the pink haired warrior. “You’ve got to be careful.”

  
  


The beach was beautiful, as was the sun that was beginning to rise. The new dawn for Fodlan, a term that Edelgard had mentioned in passing as a metaphor for her new world. There was still spite inside of Hilda, but as she looked over to Marianne, her arm linked with the blue haired girl’s, such hatred soothed, if only for a moment. Some things were unavoidable.

  
  


They wandered the beaches of Derdriu, taking the time to bathe in the nature in the same way they did in the short months after the start of the war. Things were simple, relationships were too. Now, the lines were all blurred.

  
Marianne took a swig from a water skin, allowing Hilda to stare silently at it passing through her throat. As she pulled it from her lips she gasped out, refreshed. “Want some? I need you to keep up your fluids.”

  
  


Hilda nodded. When did she get this thirsty? “I’m not a baby, Mari. You don’t have to treat me like one.” Despite this, she still took the water from her companion and drank deep into the water skin. “Thanks.”

  
  


A smile. Marianne looked so cute when she smiled. “It’s no worry. Let’s continue.”

  
  


It was hard to get over the end of the Alliance. Hilda always held out some sort of hope that Claude would enact one final scheme, return from the land of the dead and finish the fight Edelgard started. No such miracle had come. The one thing that made it bearable was Marianne, her former classmate and best friend who held promise of becoming something more. It was the people who were left that determined it was better to keep living. She was sure that in a few months, the Church of Seiros and the Flame Emperor would clash for a final time, but she knew that no matter the outcome she could be happy.

She definitely hoped for the church’s return. Or at the very least, Edelgard’s death.

  
  


“Here’s a good place to sit!” Hilda rushed ahead, heavily limping across the sands until she made it to the rock she pointed Marianne towards. The blue haired girl joined her. They sat against the rock, watching the sun and allowing Hilda to catch her breath. The wounds from the invasion of Derdriu had almost completely healed, all that was left was for her stamina to recover.

Expect this time, Hilda didn’t intend to continue fighting. Not for Edelgard. She decided that she’d wait out the war and start up her jewellers business, like she had intended years ago. And maybe, just maybe, she’d ask Marianne to join her there.

  
  


“ _What do you think will happen to us?”_ Lysithea had said to her the night after the invasion. The girl had willingly sided with Byleth in the fight, turning her back on the Alliance to secure a better future. Maybe Claude’s final scheme had worked, after all. _“The Golden Deer. They don’t exactly exist anymore.”_

  
  


_Hilda hummed. “The Golden Deer still exists within us. That’s something Claude told me when he saved me. I don’t know what it means, but I’m sure it’s something…”_

  
  


“ _Wise words, as always.” Lysithea turned towards the rest of the medical bay, watching Marianne heal up a slightly bruised Caspar. “I guess it means that we’re the Golden Deer, or something like that. That for as long as we had the memories of our school days, we’d still remain a team.”_

  
  


_Hilda laughed. “You might be overthinking it.”_

  
  


The war might be over for them, the battle long lost. Most of their classmates might have met their end at the hands of the empire, but the ones who remained had what it took to keep going. If they had kept up the fight, their death would have been guaranteed and their cities would have been burned to the ground. In submitting, in losing, they gained more than they could have possibly could have from the war.

  
  


It’s not all that bad, Hilda thinks. Maybe Claude’s final scheme had yet to receive an ending. Maybe securing their future was the ultimate trick of them all.

**Author's Note:**

> I've recently hit the 200 hour mark for Fire Emblem Three Houses, so I decided to write something for it since I've always had ideas for fics involving these characters.  
> Ending the story was hard to do, and I'm still unsatisfied with how I chose to do it but it was the only thing that I could see working without making it a chaptered fic.  
> Hope y'all enjoyed!


End file.
